Rat's Revenge
by Annikaya
Summary: In a mission to destroy a biological weapon, Duo is able to teach an Alliance general a bit about underestimating street rats.
1. Default Chapter

_Gundam Wing and its characters do not belong to me. I make no profit from this story._

It was a strange mission from the beginning, one that paired Duo and Quatre together. For this Quatre was glad, for he didn't know the braided pilot too well and he desired to know all his companions.

For all its peculiarity, it was a simple mission. They only had to infiltrate the Alliance base and destroy a lab that had manufactured a bio-weapon and could do so again if ordered. All samples of the contagion were to be destroyed as well as any equipment that could replicate it. A few strategically placed bombs would take care of it easily.

It was so simple that Quatre had wondered why it should take two of them to do it but Duo hadn't had any idea either. He'd just laughed and said that he'd appreciate an audience watching his expertise with demolitions.

"After all, I am the one and only fabulous Duo Maxwell." He winked mischievously and then grinned widely in a manner that was pure, patented Maxwellian style. Quatre laughed and shook his head. He liked the other cheerful pilot, so different from the focused dour attitudes of the rest. Duo was always good at cheering people up just by being his usual upbeat self; that much Quatre already knew.

"So, how you wanna do it Q?"

"Heero tells me you're good at, well, going unseen. What do you suggest?" Quatre didn't even need his space heart to feel the surprised delight emanating off the other at that unexpected compliment.

"He really said that? Wow. I didn't think he ever tore his eyes from his computer long enough to notice. Well..." Here the American stopped to think. "I suppose the best bet would probably be to take the place of delivery men. Laboratories are always shipping in fancy supplies and things so it wouldn't attract any notice. Let's see...we'll need a truck and uniforms...and what else?" Duo had continued talking, now more to himself than Quatre. It was a funny little habit of his. It seemed he never shut his mouth. Quatre knew it bugged some of the others but it had never seemed like that big of a deal to him. But then Trowa was always telling him he was too easy going.

It wasn't hard to come by the truck, delivery uniforms, and other necessities that Duo specified. And just as Duo had claimed, the Alliance officers let them right onto the base with their delivery truck and official looking documents that Trowa had doctored up for them.

"Oh goody. What do you boys have for us today?" The one scientist asked, stepping forward as his fellow lab coated associate looked on. His eyes were bright with excitement as he noted the large boxes they carried. He could hardly wait to open those boxes and play with his new toys.

"We only deliver them." Duo said. "Anyway, I'm going to need your signature."

The one scientist leaned over the clipboard to sign and, his back forming a shield from the other's view, was neatly shot with a silenced gun.

"Hey! What's wrong with him?" Quatre asked, pretending to sound surprised and alarmed.

So of course the other scientist rushed forward, only to meet the same end as his coworker.

"Right." Quatre said. He went to the computer to begin downloading the files they needed while Duo began setting the bombs. They were almost done when Quatre noticed something.

"Duo, we have a slight complication."

Duo looked up, alarmed. He was tense and his hand was down near his gun.

"The general in charge of this project is here on base. He's supposed to be headed here for a meeting with those two." The Sandrock pilot nodded his head at the two fallen men on the floor.

"K'so!" Duo swore and kicked a rack full of the plague virus, making them rattle and teeter ominously.

"Careful!" Quatre yelped, alarmed.

For some reason there was a dark mirth on Duo's face. "Don't worry about it. I'm immune to this stuff."

"Well, I'm not." He wondered briefly why the other had been given a vaccination and he hadn't but pushed that aside.

"Don't get your panties in a twist." Duo came over and looked at the computer screen over the blonde's shoulder. His eyes narrowed and then he grinned but there was something calculating in his eyes that Quatre hadn't seen there before, even when they'd been in battle. It was similar to that predatory glee he'd seen in the carnage they routinely faced but then, just like that it was gone again.

"Here's what we do..."

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	2. Chapter Two

When the general stepped into the clean, sterile laboratory a short while later he was greeted with two industrious looking young men in lab coats.

"Where are the lieutenants?" he asked imperiously.

The blonde looked up. "I'm sorry General but a seal cracked this morning on the new batch. They're in quarantine right now."

"No one said anything about that!"

The door had shut behind him and now the other young assistant spoke up from behind him. "There are a lot of things no one mentions. After all, this project is secret, isn't it?" The tone was innocent and light but it stirred the hairs on the back of the general's neck. He turned to glare at the young man.

"Be careful of your tone soldier!"

Quatre spoke up, trying to distract the general's attention and wondering what Duo was up to. "Perhaps sir it would be best if you came back tomorrow when the lieutenants are released?"

"Forget that! I don't have unlimited time that I can just throw it around! I have other business to oversee. Just tell me how the work is going."

"It's very effective General. As you know, it's proven to be airborne and very virulent." Duo's voice was a deceptively soft drawl that Quatre couldn't figure out but he could feel the wintery cold clutch at his heart, the diamond sharp arctic cut that lived behind the other's eyes.

"Yes, yes. I know that already. We did the tests, remember?" The man was clearly becoming impatient.

"Although those were hardly fair subjects."

"Of course not. Dirty subhuman L2 rats. Just tell me if you're ready for the next tests!"

And now Quatre saw the danger. L2, he knew was where Duo was from. Was this vengeance for the colony he protected? Had he perhaps seen someone who had contracted this mysterious contagion?

"It'll be hard to find subjects."

"Just use the same ones we did last time. No one will notice and if they do, they won't care."

Lightning fast Duo had grabbed the general around the throat and had some sort of hypodermic needle pressed into the tender skin of the general's upper arm. "Guess what General? Someone cared."

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	3. Chapter Three

The general's eyes were wide with shock and fright as he held motionless in Duo's grasp.

"Duo!" Quatre exclaimed, just as surprised. He didn't know what was going on, but this certainly was more than necessary for the mission. They could have easily killed the man and escaped.

"Sorry 04, Duo's out. I am Shinigami."

"What...What do you want from me?" The general tried to demand but it came out a bit to plaintive to attain the commanding fearless guise he had hoped for.

His captor's lips quirked up in a humorless chilling smirk. "I want you to die. Which you will. Painfully. Like all those children you killed. Those children who already worked so hard just to live while you sold the antidote to everyone else."

"They were nothing!"

"They were everything! They were more than you could ever be!" Abruptly he released the general and stepped back, blocking the doorway. "Those children you killed valued life. I suggest you try it, seeing as how you have about a week to live before the lovely stuff I invited into your bloodstream kills you."

"I'm in the Alliance you fool! I have the best medical care in the world!" But a sweat drop was clinging tenuously to his forehead, belying his confident words.

"I'm a Gundam pilot General. If we can build that, we can certainly build a bio-weapon worse than yours. Of course, we have an antidote too, just like you did." He pulled out a little vial of liquid and looked at it curiously. Casually he continued. "Maybe I'll sell it to the highest bidder. I'm sure you have enemies that would like to make sure you never lay hands on it."

"Duo..." Quatre began, suddenly knowing exactly why he'd been assigned to this mission. The scientists must have known that Duo would react this way to the General, would in fact require Quatre to rein him in. But Quatre still didn't know why Duo was so upset over this. "Duo, we need to leave. We don't have time for this. We have a mission."

"So do I." He turned his attention back to the trembling man before him. "You know, you took away their families, their homes, their futures. And then you took away their lives too. They had more courage and valor and worth than you will ever have."

"_Duo."_ It was a bit of a plea. Quatre really didn't want to still be here when someone noticed the scientists or the general missing and came looking.

To his relief, the other nodded shortly. "Come on 04. Let's blow this joint." He pressed the detonator and turned to the general once more. "You've got five minutes to get clear before this place goes sky high. I'd make use of that time if I were you. No reason to cut your remaining time short." He stepped aside and gestured grandly to the door beside him.

"I can have my men here in seconds!"

"Sorry old pal but they're a little busy."

It was true, for they'd broken into the computer system earlier and placed a false alarm that had sent everyone scurrying off.

With that said, Duo pressed the other detonator he carried and a chunk of the wall blew out, opening a clear way out. Quatre and his long haired partner made for that exit.

Seeing his hope of recovery escape with his vengeful attacker the General raced after them, reaching for his gun to find it was not there. It was, in fact, hiding in one of Duo's voluminous pockets.

Pitifully the doomed man chased after them, screaming. He would have grabbed for a shuttle or a mobile suit or anything to chase them down but the pilots had chosen their location better than they knew, for all of the heavy artillery was out of reach for the distraught General.

As the two young men drove off in a delivery truck the braided one held the vial out the window and shook it tantalizingly, viciously tormenting the man further. Seeing the truck finally fade from sight, the General succumbed to the sudden dizziness that had started to plague him and fell to his knees. They were just street rats he tried to convince himself unsuccessfully. They meant nothing.

But he knew better.

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	4. Chapter Four

As they tore away from the base in their delivery truck and stolen lab coats, it was silent. Quatre could still feel the coldness inside Duo though, the emotionless iciness that faded into a hard satisfied vengeance and then into a melancholy sorrow. All the while his face remained as expressionless and cool as Heero or Trowa on their best day. Unconsciously Quatre rubbed his chest with the heel of his palm, trying to get rid of the riotous feelings that invaded him.

After a bit Duo spoke up, his voice again cheerful and bright as though nothing had happened. It was that way after every battle or mission so it should have come as no surprise but this had obviously been personal somehow and so Quatre was surprised anyway by the ease at which Duo changed his outward appearance.

"I suppose you want to know what all that was about."

"It was...unexpected." Quatre tried to be diplomatic.

"When I was little, oh about five or so, there was a plague on L2. It was done by the Alliance to get rid of the war orphans that were so numerous there. So what they did was set loose the plague and then supply the antidote to anyone who could afford it. Of course street rats got no money, so they were out of luck. That guy back there's the one that ordered it done."

"You care a lot about it." Quatre said it casually, hoping Duo would continue. What the Deathscythe pilot had done back there had been no more than the man deserved apparently but usually the Gundam pilots didn't take the time to even every score. They were fighting a war and didn't have much time for that.

The cheerful look dropped off Duo's face and he was quiet for awhile more. It was strange seeing him that way, so uncommon and alarming. "I saw it first hand. It was a terrible thing to see happen to your family. The kids just kept getting sick and none of us was very healthy to begin with. They'd get so weak and bony and they'd keep coughing. Seeing some three year old who's every rib is showing cough and cough until they got no energy left..." His voice trailed off. "Solo...he kept us all together, kept us all going. When he got sick I managed to steal some of the serum for him but it was too late." He was looking fixedly out the front window as he said this but Quatre didn't know if he was really seeing anything. "I never got sick." And for once Quatre's space heart couldn't tell him what the other was feeling.

"I didn't know." It seemed inadequate and trite but it was all he could think to say. Suddenly the cab of the truck seemed much to close for comfort.

"Yeah, well, everyone's got their tale, don't they?" It was said lightly and with a touch of the Maxwell cheer. "I think they'd all have liked it though. Stickin' it to him and all like that."

Quatre thought for a bit, digesting the other's story and thinking of the general, facing his last days with no cure and no hope just as the lost children of L2 had done. "What you did back there..."

"Yeah?" He could feel Duo bracing himself for whatever he might say.

"If you ever need to do something like that again you can count on me to watch your back."

The other's grin was wide and unrestrained. It was a feeling that was matched on the inside. "Thanks man. And hey, if you ever need help with somethin', oh I dunno, your sisters or somethin' you just let me know."

"It's a deal." Quatre grinned back at his fellow pilot, in perfect understanding. This was something he understood. This was friendship.

_Obviously this is the last chapter. I wasn't going to post more but I got a lot of reviews saying I should, so here you go! Anyway, I hope everyone really liked it. Write me to let me know what you liked and didn't. As long as it's constructive criticism, I would really appreciate anything you have to say. As an English major, it would really help me out. Anyway, thanks for sharing this with me!_


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